


Lab 2-1B

by DarthReese



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthReese/pseuds/DarthReese
Summary: Dr. Rey Kenobi is visited in her lab by Ben Solo, the lawyer Resistech has on retainer. The meeting is not going well and only gets worse when the lab is forced to quarantine, forcing Ben and Rey to spend 14 days in confinement... together.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Skywalker, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 13
Kudos: 157





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know we are dealing with scary times being quarantined and social distanced as a result of COVID-19. If you're dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress as a result of the current situation this may not be the fic for you. Please take care of yourself and those around you during these stressful times.  
> For me, it was therapeutic to look at these scary times through the lens of these characters that I love.

“Look Kenobi, sign the documents. We need to get this over with.” Solo paced the space in front of her desk with his hands on his hips.

She slowly turned the page without looking up. “I’m not going to sign without reading every,” she licked her finger, “single,” she slowly pulled the next page down, “word.” He contemplated the legal ramifications of breaking her finger.

He growled. He actually growled. “Don’t you think that some of us have things to do? Do you think I want to be here?”

“Oh,” Rey said, glancing up for the first time. “Does the hot shot lawyer have big plans? Hot date? Booty call?”

He rolled his eyes and stared out the window into the lab. “I don’t make a habit of discussing my personal life with clients.”

“So I’m a client now?” she said, studying the page in front of her.

“Resistech is my client. You work for Resistech, so you’re like… a sub-client.”

“Lucky me.” She bit the end of her pen. He watched her mouth on the pen. The first time he saw her bite her pen, she sat on the floor of the lab, files spread out around her. Her hair tied into three knots down the back of her head, just like they were now. He'd tried to get her attention repeatedly, tapping on the glass, but lost in thought and the thump of the baseline of a song he couldn't make out, she continued to chew on the pen. When he finally resorted to banging on the glass she jumped. When she opened the door he was bombarded by an upbeat chorus sung by David Bowie and a furious scientist.

“What the hell are you doing? This is a secure lab.” She roared at him in a British accent, her top knot just barely reaching his chin.

“I’m looking for Dr. Kenobi. I have to prepare him for testifying in the Unkar case.” Ben said, looking over her head and around the room for the doctor.

“I think I might have bad news for you,” she said, glaring but opening the door wide enough for him to follow her in as she turned off the stereo. He moved to set his briefcase down on a long table in the lab when she ordered “Don’t touch anything." He stopped in his tracks. “I’m Dr. Kenobi. And I know how to testify in court. I don’t need to be prepared.”

“From what I hear,” he glanced at his notes, “the last time you testified you yelled at the judge and it took a miracle in the form of a jury member having a heart attack to avoid you getting held in contempt of court. So you definitely need to be prepared.”

The memory of the ensuing yelling match ended with her lab assistant coming back from lunch, calling security, and physically separating them. Needless to say, another partner came in from the firm to prep Dr. Kenobi.

They had crossed paths a few times since that first meeting, each time icier then the last.

In the present, Kenobi threw a paper clip at his head. It bounced off the window in front of him. “Solo,” she spat his name, “are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” he jumped, turning back to look at her, “What did you say?”

“I don’t understand this verbiage. Right here,” she pointed at the page in front of her.

He rounded her desk and looked over her shoulder. He gripped the back of her chair and put his hand on her desk. She jerked away from him. “Easy Kenobi,” he said, adding inches of space between them. A loop of her top knot snagged on his coat button as he moved away. Her head jerked to the side. “What the hell Solo!” she said.

“Hold still!”

“Hold still!? You’re pulling my hair!”

“Let me fix this,” he said, swatting her hands away so that he could attempt to pull her the hair from his lapel.

“Ow,” she moaned, trying to force his hands away from the button. “How are you supposed to fix this is with your giant, oaf hands.”

The continued to bat each others hands as the office intercom crackled to life. “All staff. Code White. I repeat, code white. All staff to remain quarantined until further notice.” The droll voice of the woman on the intercom said matter-of-factly. They both froze.

“What?” They yelled in tandem, wrenching away from each other.

Kenobi yelped as the hair was ripped from her head. She held one hand to her aching scalp and shoved Ben out of her way to get to her desk phone. She furiously dialed.

“This is Dr. Kenobi, in lab 2-1B, what is this about a quarantine?” She stilled as the voice on the other end of the line provided her with information. “For how long?” Her eyes grew huge “Four hours! No, that’s ridiculous… fine. Alright. I said fine.” She slammed the receiver down. It bounced off the console and clattered on the desk. Ben instinctively picked it up and returned it to its place.

“What’s a code white? what’s happening?” Ben said, angrily tugging the strands of hair out of his button. “What do they mean quarantine?”

“It means that we’re stuck in this office until they tell us we can leave.”

“Why? How long will that be?”

“Because there is some sort of chemical or biological agent in the building. It could be an attack, or someone could be sick, I have no bloody idea. They aren't sure for how long but they expect to have everything sorted in the next four hours. Meanwhile I have the wonderful pleasure of being stuck in this ten foot by ten foot box with you,” she huffed, slumping back into her chair.

“The pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” he said, before driving his fist through the dry wall across from her desk.

“Wow, real mature.”

“Yeah well, like I said, I had things to do.” He didn’t. He just didn’t want to be wherever she was. She smelled like vanilla and sterilization and it filled the space. He resisted the urge to gag. “So now what?” He paced in the small space in front of her messy desk. The room felt smaller than it had ten minutes ago, or maybe he felt larger.

She glared at him and folded her arms across her chest. “Now we sit here.”


	2. Protocol 3378

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Excuse me?”
> 
> “What?” he asked, not looking up as he absentmindedly arranged the paperclips in the cactus shaped tray.
> 
> “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit confused. You punched a hole in my wall and now you’re arranging my paperclips.”
> 
> He glanced over his shoulder at the oaf-fist-sized hole in her wall and shrugged. She stared at him in disbelief.

Rey spent the first twenty minutes of their mandated togetherness glaring at Solo across her desk. His giant body filled the limited space, her head ached where he had yanked her hair from her scalp, and she was going to miss Presentation Night with B, Finn, and Rose. She had worked hard on that presentation too. It was going to be really funny. But instead of drinking wine and laughing until she cried as her friends presented pseudo academically on which friend from Friends is best and why people who don’t keep right except to pass deserve to be exiled, she was stuck in isolation with giant Ben Solo and his giant head. Plus, he had punched a hole in her wall. He had punched an actual hole in her wall. Like some kind of crazy person.

“So we’re just going to sit here in silence then?” he said, finally stopping his pacing and slumping into one of the two chairs facing her desk. She smirked because he had picked the one that had lost its rubber leg guard and tended to wobble. He deserved to wobble.

“Yes.”

“What? Is this some how my fault? Is it my fault that your lab is apparently full of disease or bioweapons or some other bullshit?”

“It’s your fault that we are stuck here together. If you had just dropped off the papers like I suggested we wouldn’t be in this mess, now would we?”

He ran his hand through his shaggy hair. Stupid lawyer couldn’t even get a hair cut. “I already told you, I am not allowed to leave the documents behind. I have to bring them here. Watch you sign them. And take them back. That is the procedure. That is the procedure we have discussed one hundred times.”

She rolled her eyes. They had discussed it one hundred times. Every time a new contract flitted across her desk, it always came attached to Solo’s giant form. You change the verbiage once without telling anyone, get sued by a major corporation, and nearly cost the firm a huge deal and you suddenly require an oafish babysitter. “I’m not going to sign it unless I’ve…”

“Read every word. Yeah I know.” He said leaning forward and fiddling with the objects on her desk. He began neatly arranging anything within his wingspan.

“Excuse me?”

“What?” he asked, not looking up as he absentmindedly arranged the paperclips in the cactus shaped tray.

“I’m sorry, I’m just a bit confused. You punched a hole in my wall and now you’re arranging my paperclips.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the oaf-fist-sized hole in her wall and shrugged. She stared at him in disbelief.

After a moment of watching him gently place each paper clip in the ceramic dish, she picked up her Oxford Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, a relic from her college years that now acted as a bookend for the haphazard row of text books and articles leaning against her desk. She stood up slowly, careful not to draw Solo’s attention from his task. She dropped the book from two feet above the desk’s messy surface. Paper clips flew every where as Solo jumped out of his skin.

“What the actual fu-”

The peal of her phone desk phone drowned him out. “Hello?”

“Dr. Kenobi, this is Amilyn Holdo.”

“Hello. Any news on the code white? Like, when we are getting out of here?”

“I have news and I’m sorry to say it’s bad.” Rey slumped back into her chair. Holdo continued with administrative precision, “There was an accident in the Lab DD-13. A mutated form of the Krytos Virus infected a technician. The entire facility is at risk.”

“Ma’am that’s impossible, human’s can’t contract Krytos.”

“Tell that to Aril Nun. She died, writhing on the floor of her lab ten minutes ago.”

“Shit.”

“We don’t know the implications for humans. We only have the history of the virus in animals to go off of. The incubation period is anywhere from 10 to 14 days. So until we know who in the lab is infected or figure out a cure everyone is in lockdown.”

“14 days!”

“Initiate protocol 3378 immediately and report back.”

“Ma’am it’s not just me in here. Solo, from Snoke, Ren and Associates is here as well. What am I supposed to do with him?”

“You’re in lockdown Kenobi. Keep your lab secure. Your life may depend on it.” the line went dead.

Rey put the receiver down gently this time. Her mind reeling. 14 days.

“So?” Solo said, his hands gripped together.

“We need to initiate protocol 3378,” She slowly got to her feet.

“What does that mean?”

She couldn’t look him in the eye, “We will be quarantined for potentially the next 14 days. Protocol 3378 mandates that we are detained to this hermetically sealed lab, evaluate all of our resources and liabilities, and exterminate any possible threats.”

Solo sat frozen in his seat. When he finally spoke, the sound was barely more than a whisper, “What?”

Rey took a deep breath. She flipped over the top page of the contract she was meant to be signing and drew a rudimentary map of the lab. “My lab is made up of five rooms.” She drew a large square for the main lab, “the main laboratory,” and four smaller rooms attached to it, and labeled them as she spoke, “my office, two supply closets, and a basic bathroom. In the event of any sort of emergency, the lab is sealed so that no pathogens can get in or out. The air and water supplies are completely self sufficient. So 1. We stay within these five rooms. 2. we take detailed stock of everything we have. and 3. get rid of anything in this lab that may be harmful to us during the quarantine.”

“Holy Shit.”

“Indeed.”

“Holy Shit! No! This is ridiculous.” He bounded to his feet and moved towards the door separating them from the stark lab space, wrenching it open.

“No! I’m not staying here. This is bullshit. No.”

Rey snarled as she leapt across her desk, through the office door, and drove her shoulder to the giant’s back. He toppled over in spite of her smaller frame. She threw herself on top of him, using all her weight to slow him down as he tried to throw her off and make it to the lab door. “I don’t care for you, I don’t care what your plans were today, or for the next 14 days. But as much as I might hate you I wouldn’t wish Krytos on my worst enemy.” She yelled as he struggled to throw her off his back, “will you just stop and listen to me!”

She grabbed his shaggy hair and jerked upwards until he yelped and froze under her.

“Krytos is a virus that causes pain. It’s like nature decided that it wanted to kill you slowly and in the most painful way possible. Now there are two possible situations here. We have either not been infected, in which case leaving this room could result in you contracting the disease and dying a slow painful death. Or we have been infected and you could leave this lab, infect the rest of humanity, and still die a slow and painful death. So what’s it going to be Solo? Are you going to help me and try to survive this thing or are you going to be the dick that started a pandemic?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having too much fun with this. And sorry if these chapters are kind of short and i'm moving to fast. I get all excited and can't help myself :)


	3. The Sanitization of Lab 2-1B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is turning bright red a symptom of this virus because if it is, I think we have a problem.”
> 
> A.K.A. Ben is a briefs guy.

“Fine!” he said. She shifted her weight, digging her knee into his back. He hissed. “Will you get off me please?”

“Are you going to adhere to the protocols?” she yanked on his hair again.

“Ouch — Yes. Yes I’ll adhere to your protocols. Now get off of me.” As he got to his feet after she finally got off, she glared at him warily. He raised his hands in defeat.

“Alright,” she nodded, “now do something useful with your giantess and get me that binder off the cabinet there,” she pointed at a row of dusty three ring binders lining the top of the cabinet, well beyond her reach. He extended his arm and grabbed the binder labeled ‘Code White.’

“Now what would you have done if I hadn’t been here to get that off that very high shelf for you?” he asked, blowing the dust from the book in her face.

She yanked the book from his hands, set it on the lab table, and flipped through the pages until she reached a very scary page entitled: Quarantine due to Infections Disease. She ran her finger down the bulleted to do list.

As she set about the business of ensuring they didn’t die while in quarantine Ben dusted himself off. He stepped back into the office and grabbed his phone from his briefcase. He stared down at the blank screen. Who would he call? They always talk about this moment, when looking a catastrophe in the face, who do you call? The thing was there was no one he particularly wanted to talk to. He settled on calling the office.

“Look Hux, I recognize that this isn’t ideal, but I don’t really have any control over it.”

“You have a court appearance tomorrow! The meeting with the Calrissian group on Tuesday, those are big contracts Solo!” He imagined the ginger turning red with anger.

“Yeah and you’re going to have to cover for me because i’m stuck. I could die Huxley and you are worried about the meeting with the Calrissian group on Tuesday. You’re such an ass.”

“Snoke isn’t going to like this,” Hux said. He could practically hear the wheels turning in Hux’s head through the phone. Yes, this was a set back. Quarantined or not, missing depositions and meetings would not look good. If Hux got partner before him because of this. He glanced at the hole he had made in the wall and thought about giving it a neighbor.

He stepped back into the lab. “Did you call your girlfriend?” Rey said, not looking up from the dusty binder.

He raised an eyebrow at the question. “No, the office.” He ran a hand through his floppy hair. His mother would hate it at this length, which is why he kept it so long. “So what do we do?”

Step 1. Sanitize or destroy any items brought into the lab within 48 hours.

“Alright, what did you bring into the lab?” he asked, looking around the stark space, nothing appeared out of place.

“No one worked yesterday, I only came in a bit before you did,” she looked thoughtfully at her office, “So basically the contract and everything we are wearing.”

He snorted, “just that then?”

“Yeah, we’ll have to burn everything,” she crossed the lab and opened the incinerator capsule.

“Ok then,” Ben said taking off his jacket. “Should I just throw it right in there?”

She nodded, biting her cheek.

“Alright,” he shrugged, tossing the jacket into the dark hole. He slipped off his shoes next. “Can these be sanitized or do they go in the fire?”

“We can sanitize your shoes, your belt” she looked him up and down, her cheeks turning pink as the thought of his underpants preference crossed her mind. “And your watch too, but everything else will have to go.”

She tore her eyes away from his fingers undoing his belt buckle and stumbled back to her office. Her fingers felt like sausages and her face burned as she sadly picked up her sack lunch from the desk. Holding the left over Carbonara she would never get to eat in one hand, she scooped up the papers on her desk haphazardly with the other. “I hope you have another copy of this contra—” she stammered as she stepped out of her office, looked up, and saw a shirtless Solo stepping out of his trousers in her lab. “Contract.”

“Hux will take care of it while we are stuck here,” he paused in thought as he took off his sock and grimaced.

Rey consciously looked everywhere but at him. Prior to this moment, had she taken a moment to imagine what she would find under Solo’s perfectly tailored suits, it would have been a lanky, unappealing form, not the sculpted, muscular frame that stood before her now.

“Can I leave these on?” he said, snapping the elastic strap of his briefs. She gulped.

When she finally replied with a “yeah” it came out as a high pitched squeak. She tossed everything in to the incinerator and turned a bright shade of red as she began to remove her own clothes. Rey shivered as he felt her blatantly watching her undress. He snorted when she turned her back to him as she removed her own trousers.

“Not much point in that sweetheart,” he said, leaning casually, and so very near nakedly, against the lab table. She glared at him over her shoulder. He shrugged and flashed her a rye smirk.

Horrified, cold, and awkward, she secured the incinerator door and grimaced as their clothes went up in smoke.

“So what’s next, Doctor,” he sneered over her title.

“We sanitize, everything.” She gestured awkwardly to the cabinet behind him, still not looking at him. He grinned. He took pride in his body, he had worked hard to attain it and wasn’t afraid to show it off, she clearly didn’t feel the same. A shame, he thought as he deliberately stared at her green panties and very utilitarian, nude bra, covering her beautiful body.

He grinned to himself as he opened the cabinet and tossed her a bottle of cleaning product and a towel. She kept her back to him as she ordered him to clean all the counter tops and cupboards. He liked cleaning, liked the procedure of it, not in his underwear, but in general. It felt like being in control, and everything was so very out of his control, with the partnership and being trapped in this room. His mind raced and the anxiety nagged at his psyche at the thought of being trapped in this room for 14 days, in his underwear. In her underwear.

“Wait are we going to be in our underwear for the entire time? You’re going to be bright red for 14 days?”

She jumped, “No!” She turned around, trying to cover her face, her legs, and the rest of her body at the same time. “We have stuff — in the lab — we have clothes,” her eyes were huge with embarrassment, “we just have to get clean first.”

Ben nodded. Part of him wanted to rile her feathers more. The blush creeping down her chest made him giddy. But the other half of him wanted to cover her up, wrap her in a blanket, in his coat, in a blanket, anything to get her to stop being so damn embarrassed and to bully him back.

She didn’t say another word to him as they worked through cleaning every surface that they could have exposed. He took particular pleasure in watching her pick up each and every paperclip she had knocked from his neat stack. She knelt on the carpet, her ass to him, as he cleaned the window between the office and lab.

“Well, that’s probably all we can do under the circumstances,” Ben said after two hours work and an incinerator filled with paper towels.

She nodded and chewed her lip.

“Hey, what’s up with you?” he said, trying to catch her eye. “Is turning bright red a symptom of this virus because if it is, I think we have a problem.”

She glared at him, finally meeting his eye. “I’m going to shower first because I can’t deal with looking at you anymore.”

“You wound me,” he said, dramatically grabbing his chest as though she had shot him.

“Drop dead.” she said over her shoulder as she stepped into the small bathroom off the lab.

“I thought the point of all this was to not drop dead.”

“Just sit there and don’t touch anything,” she said before slamming the door shut.


	4. Peril

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I thought doctors were supposed to comfortable with the human body?”

Rey took a deep breath before she excited the tiny bathroom. The space was tiled from floor to ceiling, held a small sink, a toilet, and the shower head and drain mirrored each other in the center of the floor and ceiling. The room was very easy to clean, but she was very uncomfortable being naked with only the door separating her from Ben Solo. She wrapped her self in the damp towel hanging from a hook in the door and balled up her undergarments in her fist. The thought of him seeing her knickers brought the color back to her cheeks. Not that he hadn’t already seen them she supposed. 

Worst day of her life.

She cracked the door open. “Turn your back.” she ordered.

She heard him sigh, but when she hesitantly pushed the door open he sat crosslegged on the floor in the center of the lab, his back to her. He snickered as the door closed behind her and tip toed to the incinerator and threw her underwear in.

“So my turn now?”

“Wait, just stay there,” she dripped behind him, scurrying into the storage closet where they kept the extra clothes. Before she shut the door she poked her arm out with a dry towel from storage, “take this.”

He walked to her slowly. Annoyed, she waved the towel around. He grabbed her wrist with one hand and took the towel from her fingers with the other.

“Ass,” she grumbled, yanking her arm out of his massive grip and slamming the door behind her.

“Prude,” she heard him say through the barrier.

Ben laughed to himself as she slammed the door in his face. For a very smart doctor she wasn’t very bright. Her order to turn his back on her had backfired. From the moment she had stepped from the bathroom he could see her towel swathed body reflected in the window in front of him. 

He leaned back against the door, knowing full well she stood naked inside, and said, “You know, walking over here, I could see pretty much everything when you stuck your hand out?” he heard her snarl at him through the door. “I thought doctors were supposed to comfortable with the human body?”

“See, I have no come back for that, you are exactly what I would expect every shark of a lawyer to be.” She hissed back through the wood.

He rolled his eyes and traipsed back through the lab towards the bathroom. He grimaced at the trail of water she had left behind. Such a slob. That was the thing he hated most about her. Whenever their paths crossed there was always something so disheveled about her, the stack of papers she carried as she hurried down the hall in a jumble, a food stain on her shirt, or hair sticking out of one of her wild buns. She was chaos personified and he hated it. 

“You’re going to clean this floor right?” he called over his shoulder, “You left a trail. Someone could slip.” She didn’t respond.

And three buns? Three? Ridiculous. One, fine. Two, quirky. Three, just unnecessary. He huffed to himself as he shut the door behind him and entered the box that pretended to be a bathroom. He snorted, took a step, and —

She busied her self with dressing, ignoring his jibes. Each person who worked in her lab kept extra clothes around for this very purpose. She pulled on a white sports bra and cotton pants under a pair of medicinal blue scrubs. She twisted her hair into a wild bun on top of her head when she heard a howl, a thud, and silence. 

She dashed to the bathroom and pounded on the door, “Solo?”

A muffled “Ow,” came from the other side.

She turned the knob and pushed but the door only opened a crack. “What the — Solo, move.”

“Ow,” he moaned again, his giant form blocking the door.

She peered through the tiny gap and to her horror saw red, “Damnit Solo,” she said, shoving the door until he rolled over, allowing her space to enter, the tiny room.

She maneuvered around him until the door was fully open and he lay fully extended on the bathroom floor. His torso, his very muscular torso — no don’t look at his torso — covered the entire bathroom floor, his legs stretched into the lab. She breathed to calm herself, looking at his legs, and what’s worse the space between his legs and his torso, now damp and clingy… No stop. Focus. Blood.

She had to straddle his enormous chest to get a good look at his bleeding face. “You big oaf,” she muttered as she grabbed his chin and pulled his face towards hers.

“Ow,” he moaned again.

She gingerly touched the swelling welt and gash on his forehead, angling away from his eye, he winced. “You big baby, hold still. What happened?”

“What happened,” he said through gritted teeth, “is you didn’t clean up after yourself, like usual, and I slipped.”

“So this is my fault?” She said, reaching up to the sink and dampening the towel meant for hand drying.

“Yes.” He pinched kept his eyes pinched closed.

She rolled her eyes, “I hardly think this is my fault.” She leaned forward and dabbed at the cut. She sighed at his damp, but unwashed hair. “Can you stand? You need to get clean and changed.” She shifted her weight to get off of him. Twice in one day she found herself in this position, straddling Ben Solo. He winced. She glanced down at his side and realized the liquid soaking her knee wasn’t just from the shower, but from the blood seeping form his side.

“Fuck!” She exclaimed as she examined the tender flesh where he had been grated like a block of cheese on the shower drain.

“What?” he said, trying to sit up.

“Stop,” she put her hand on his shoulder, “Hold still. You might have a concussion.”Her eyes shifted between the gash on his head and the mangled flesh at his side and bit her lip. Bandage him now or later? Follow protocol? An open would would hardly bode well if any particles of the virus resided in his hair and then got into the open wounds.

“Stay,” she ordered, and got to her feet. 

She returned a moment later carrying a bottle fo alcohol and some gauze. 

“This is going to hurt,” she said, before unceremoniously pouring the alcohol into the wound at his side. He roared and tensed under her, trashing has she held him down the best she could. Her 5’ 7” wasn’t much of a match for his writhing, muscular 6’ 2”, but it was enough. When he stopped wriggling, she put the gauze over the wound and covered it in cling film and tape. The best she could do to seal it while she turned to his forehead. He glared at her as his chest rose and fell in an angry rhythm under her thighs. She shrugged at him. “Close your eyes, if you get alcohol in your eyes and you go blind, I will not be taking responsibility.”

He glowered but pinched his eyes shut. She dabbed at the cut with her a cotton swab and sealed it like she had his side. “Now, I need you to sit up for a second,” she breathed through her nose, “I have to wash your hair.”

Ben’s side hurt, the inside of his head hurt, the outside of his head hurt, but he had to admit, Rey had magic hands. Not when she was pouring alcohol into his fucking wound or prodding at his literals bleeding head, but as massaged the shampoo into his hair. He was still lying on the floor of the bathroom, but resting his head on her thigh as she massaged the lather into his scalp, was damn near heaven. And was it the potential concussion talking or was she taking longer than she needed to? This was the longer than he had ever taken to wash his hair, but maybe it was the protocol. Whatever it was, the feel of her fingers in his hair eased the ache in his head, ever so slightly.

“Ready to stand up?” she asked, wiping the suds off her hands and onto his chest. He peaked one eye open at her.

“No,” he said and closed his eyes again. He could feel her rolling her eyes above him.

“Too bad,” she said and maneuvered her way out from under him. He groaned as she gently set his head down on the hard floor. “Time to rinse off.” 

She helped him to his feet slowly, and he had to admit, he did feel a little queasy. He rested the unwounded part of his forehead against the cold wall. she turned the shower head on and eased him back into the flow of water. He kept his eyes closed as she ran her hand through his hair again until, he assumed, all the suds were gone. “That’s it,” she said, easing him back to resting his head against the wall. “Don’t fall over again, I’ll run out of clean scrubs.”

She came back a moment later and pulled him back off his wall, “Solo, you need to… you need to change…”

He squinted at her, “Into what?”

She held up a stack of clothes mirroring hers. “My lab assistant Chewie is a giant, probably bigger than you.”

“Great,” he said, against the throb in his head.

“Look, you have to take off… to take off…”

He snorted and put his wet head against her shoulder, “Yeah, I know. Protocol.” He grabbed her other shoulder with one hand and began stepping out of his soaking briefs with the other. She stiffened and he smirked into her shoulder. He could sense that she was staring straight ahead.

She handed him Chewie’s boxer shorts without looking down. He stepped into the pants and managed to pull the oversized top over his aching head. He looked down at the pants that pooled around his feet. “Damn, how tall is this guy?”

“7 feet” she said, easing him to the floor. He sat against a lab table with his eyes closed.

“I’ve haven’t felt too small for my clothes since I was 10.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Did you give yourself a concussion so you wouldn’t have to help me?”

“No,” He laid down flat on the ground as she changed into a dry, blood free, set of clothes, cleaned his blood from the floor, and began taking stock of their resources.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Ben's scar is supposed to go down is cheek, but I had a crush on a guy in high school who had a scar on his forehead that was basically a continuation of ben's scar, and it just made more sense.
> 
> I also, as a child, fell in a shower and had my butt scrapped up like a cheese grater and it was awful, so here we are.


	5. First Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben spend their first night in quarantine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest I didn't edit this or re read it at all...

“Yes… yes… no.” Ben blinked awake, “He’s probably fine.” Rey was on the phone in her office and he had some how fallen asleep on the linoleum floor, flat on his back. Weren’t you supposed to stay awake after a concussion? If he even had a concussion… but maybe she really did want him to die? 

“Oi, Giant, are you alive?” She bellowed at him, the handset pressed to her chest.

He waived his hand above his head and didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, he’s fine… alright. Yeah. Alright. Thanks Chewie. See you in 14 I guess,” the handset clicked into the base.

“What kind of name is Chewie?”

“It’s a nickname, for Charles, I don’t know where it came from actually.” She exited the office and leaned over one of the lab tables he was stretched out between. “How’s the head?”

He glared up at her. She beamed down at him.

“I’ve been better,” he moved to sit up and winced as his tail bone dug into the hard floor. “So what now?”

“Well,” she checked her watch. “It’s 22:00 and the binder says that we need to start following a strict sleep schedule. For our mental and physical health.”

He glared at her, “I just woke up.”

She shrugged, “Time for bed Solo.”

Twenty minutes later, after they had both prepared for bed and pulled out the emergency sleeping supplies (the vacuum sealed packages containing the bedding were actually labeled “Emergency Sleeping Supplies”) they stared down at a thin foam pad overshadowed by a military cot.

“You’re injured, so you should probably take the cot.”

“Well, you’re the girl, so you should.” Ben replied.

“If that isn’t the most misogynistic thing you’ve ever said.”

He shrugged.

“Just take the cot.”

“No.”

“Uggggh.” she threw her hands over her head. “Well, what do we do? Flip for it?”

“Sure, got a coin?”

“I don’t even know what American coins look like,” Rey said.

“Thumb war?”

“Your thumb towers over mine.” she waved her hand in his face.

“Arm wrestling? actual wrestling? See who can spit the farthest?” He went through his list of options. She rolled her eyes.

She stepped into her office and returned with the ceramic dish full of paperclips. “We put the cactus on that lab table and stand behind this one and who ever makes the most paper clips into the dish wins. Best out of five. No touching the competition, you have to be behind the lab table, and you only get five shots. Simple.”

He shrugged, “loser get’s the cot?”

“Yes.”

He saluted his agreement. 

They lined up behind the far lab table. Rey tossed her first paperclip, with one eye closed and her tongue poking out of her mouth. It landed neatly in the center of the dish. She smirked at him and stepped aside so he could line up his shot.

He let out a low whistle and shook out his neck and arms as though he were preparing for an olympic swimming event. Rey rolled her eyes. “Just go.”

“Don’t rush me, I’m trying to focus.” he said. Without breaking eye contact with her, he sunk a paper clip into the dish. It danced around the bowl with a tinkle until it landed directly on top of hers. He grinned.

Rey missed her second shot, but made her third, while Ben made his second, and missed the third. They both made the forth, but as Rey lined up to take her fifth shot, Ben leaned in behind her. He ensured that he didn’t break the no contact rule, but aligned his body so only a half of an inch separated them at every point. He leaned down so his mouth was a whisper from her ear and said, “Kenobi, don’t miss,” right as she released the clip. It bounced off the back wall and clattered across the floor.

“Hey!” she yelled. “You cheated!” whirling around, her body crashed into his. His arm hair stood up inexplicably as her lean form collided with his. She shoved him off.

“Your rules were very clear,” he said, taking a step back and sinking his last clip into the dish. “No touching. You have to be behind the table. Five shots.” He grinned wickedly at her, “I win. Enjoy the cot.” 

The lay in the faint red glow of the security lights. Ben wasn’t sure he would every be able to sleep in the eerie room. It felt like a horror movie, every surface soaked in blood. No where near tired after having slept all afternoon he glanced at Rey, her back to him, curled into a ball a foot above him on the cot. Her spine moved with the breaths of sleep. Well at least one of them would get some rest to night. She was probably right, it would be best to get on a consistent sleep schedule, if for no other reason than having something to look forward to at the end of the day.

He slumped back into his comically flat pillow and recited United States Legal code from memory. It wasn’t counting sheep but it kept the memories of the past at bay. It had been his insomnia cure in law school. Before he knew the legal code it has been what ever he had been learning in school, he had fallen asleep hundred of times reciting the Presidents of the United States, the King and Queens of England, the Preamble, the Bill of Rights, anything orderly and fixed to keep his mind from returning to the chaos of his home life and the divorce and…

He woke up in the red glow flat on his stomach. A soft tickling sensation running across his back. He felt… relaxed. Groggily he looked over his shoulder. Rey lay on her stomach on the cot above him, her hair wild and tangled. One arm dangled over the cots edge and unconsciously dragged delicate fingers across his bare skin. Now very conscious, he squinted at her for a minute, unsure what to do with the new sensation and weird intimacy of Rey’s wandering hand. He shifted back onto his mat, closed his eyes, and let it happen, deciding it was better to let her sleep.

He woke up again… this time in pain. Laying on his back now, he looked down at his chest where Rey dug her nails into his skin. “What the fuck!” he swore, grabbing her wrist. She fought against him, mumbling in her sleep. “Rey,” he said in a loud voice. “Rey!” He yelled. In one fluid motion he sat up, rose to a crouch beside the cot, and shoved her onto her back. He shook her “Rey! You’re dreaming wake up. Rey!” he bellowed in her face.

She opened her eyes but they were bleary from restless sleep. She burst into tears and buried her face in his chest. Not sure what to do, he patted her head gently and held her shoulder gingerly. “It was just a dream.”

She shoved off him a moment later, wiping the tears and shaking herself. All traces of sleep gone. “Get off me,” she ordered.

“Hey, I’m the one who was attacked in the middle of the night,” he gestured to his chest.

Her eyes grew wide with horror. She shoved him again until he slid off the cot and got to her feet. “Just move!” her voice broke and she wrung her hands in front of her as she stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.


End file.
